Still coming down from the high of the premiere at the USA Film Festival... it was a really good screening and I can't say enough how thankful I am to Mike Bird at MLD Equipment Rental and Doug Thompson at Sound Ideas for their help securing an HDCAM deck and a kick-ass 8000 Lumens DLP projector. Cool stuff!

The projector throw to the screen was 103 feet and the screen was just shy of 60 feet across!!! The HD held up great and it really looked amazing.

Funny thing - and I know for a lot of folks might already know this - but it's wild how much stuff you see on the big screen, especially in HD. I noticed all kinds of "imperfections" that on my 19" NTSC monitor I NEVER saw, and even on a 19" Ikegami HD monitor (a $15,ooo one at that) I really didn't see.

You always hear of Hollywood DPs and directors (and higher end indies too) wanting to screen their dailies and later their offline edits on the big screen and now I really understand why. It's just never been a real option for me. Best I've ever screened on the big screen is DigiBeta, even when we shot 16mm (it was transferred to DigiBeta). So standard def didn't really translate many bad things, but HD, woah... a completely different animal.

Okay, so to the update... we're just waiting on the last few VFX shots to be tweaked and then we're off to Austin and Color Cafe (colorist Omar Godinez's new company). We are doing a quasi-digital intermediate for our color grading using FinalTouch HD. Omar has over 20 years experience on the DaVinci and other high-end systems and has recently opened his own boutique shop using this new desktop software. I compare it to the way desktop NLEs have taken over and virtually eliminated the big linear online suites. One day the desktop DI suites will rule (and they're really starting to come on strong now actually).

The other thing we have left is the music. Our composer has a few more cues to create and then we'll do the final sound mix. This will be a lot of work (and a lot of fun though).

HOPEFULLY, these final things will be done in the next 4 to 6 weeks. Then our plans are to have an industry screening (or two) in Los Angeles for acquisition execs, etc. We'll post all future screenings here and on the main "Killing Down" website.

One other thing too - I should have more pix from the USA Film Festival screening and after party uploaded soon. I've had lots of request for more Natalie Raitano shots! :)

-Blake

Do you like this article? Share It!